Plus, there’s no new law or updated public regulation that clearly
indicates a specific directive about VPNs or what further controls entail
precisely.

That should be expected, because it reflects how
decision-making here in China operates.

For example, there are questions about which agency will be
responsible for issuing a ban, how it will be implemented, and by whom.

It may turn out to be the Ministry of Industry and
Information Technology [中华人民共和国工业和信息化部]. That continuity would make
sense, as MIIT has become proficient in recent years at expanding its policy
portfolio and fighting off attempts by other agencies to restrict its mandate.
This shift to greater control is something that some MIIT officials have been
urging for some time now, and the idea for a ban might have originated from
them.

Or it could turn out to be China’s Ministry of Public Security
[中华人民共和国公安部] that takes greater command,
and is the propellant behind this proposal. Officials there are on the long
road back from political perdition, anxious to prove their loyalty to President
Xi Jinping and his allies after
years when local disobedience and a warlord culture flourished there. But
they’d be up against the entrenched interests of MIIT, and that’s a battle that
some there may prefer to avoid because they’re still struggling to make amends.

It’s also possible that the decision and supervision of a
new regulation ends up being the purview of the Central Leading Group for
Cyberspace Affairs [国家互联网信息办公室]. Nominally,
they’re in charge of overseeing China’s Internet. It’s difficult to see,
however, how that body would cope with the existing supervisory bodies of the
various provincial and local telecom carriers, and whether it has the staffing
to coordinate the sort of control that’s being speculated about. The Central
Leading Group does hold the whip-hand where the power to issue directives is
concerned; but they need State bureaucrats to put any changes into practice,
and so may prefer to have others implement a ban.

There’s also the matter of the administrative responsibility
of China’s municipalities and provinces. For example, local authorities will
surely look modify some plans to block VPNs in innovation zones where access to
sources outside China is crucial, especially given the massive investments that
have been made in building these complexes—at the behest of Beijing.

Not knowing what’s exactly happening with a proposed VPN ban
reflects a government that’s not only selective at best with its plans but one that also not always entirely connected to itself. Indeed, when
official representatives did finally start speaking publicly about the
possibility of VPNs being blocked here in recent days, there was confusion.

One
State media outlet denied that all VPNs would be outlawed, only those that
were not officially registered or part of a recognized institution. The
implication was that individual VPNs would be illegal and blocked, while
business VPNs might be allowed to continue to function.

But Reuters quoted
a Chinese telecom carrier as having received a notice to begin to block VPN
services last week (not February 2018, as indicated in a number of stories). That
report sounded like the measures might be local; possibly restricted to small
carriers for now; and perhaps even an experiment to see how far Beijing could
press both carriers and their customers.

In any event, there’s been no official announcement from central
government authorities—and that’s significant because it’s a sign of a lack of
consensus here about how to proceed, as well as a clear caution to those
thinking that this is a done deal.

And of course, there are political fights going on.

For example, there are those in China who will be pleased
about a ban on VPNs: hardliners who think that China is under siege; that
foreigners and foreign businesses do far more harm than good here (or can be further
undermined as competitors by a ban); and those who believe that Chinese society
could use some
“self-strengthening” [洋務運動] and see putting up more barriers as one way to secure
greater autarky. Even some local officials confess to being anxious about possible
protests that they see as encouraged by overseas websites, and so some authorities lean
towards tighter supervision.

But others worry
about the implications for universities and research, as well as for their own
personal and family prospects. Professors and graduate students want access to
the work done by others, for their own publications as well as other motives
(including identifying overseas fellowships). Privately, some parents say that
they use VPNs to access the websites of private schools and foreign
universities to explore options for their child, and these people view the fact
they have to use them as another indication of Beijing’s outmoded approach to modern
education. Many parents in fact applaud the domestic campaign against online pornography
and fraud, but still want the option to explore online without government restriction.[1]

So while hardliners want greater walls for China, others
wonder why the Great Wall isn’t great enough.

The proposal to ban VPNs—if that’s what it turns out to be—or
continue with the status quo is clearly worrisome to many here. It may well be
that someone working in China’s bureaucracy or at a telecom carrier saw a directive
and leaked notice of that order—to gather support for tighter controls, or to
muster opposition from others in the government to oppose it.[2]

Forget the assumption that this is Xi acting personally, or
that “the Communist Party” or “the Chinese government” is behind this bid to
ban VPNs. No one has ultimate authority here, and it’s divided decision-making
anyway. Officials disagree in China all the time, and factions are about policy
differences far more than local origin. There are plenty of State memorials here in China extolling
unity, but political monoliths are a myth in practice. The indecision and
uncertainty we’re seeing about what to do about VPNs is both normal and further evidence of discord at the top.

Which brings us to the 19th Party Congress.

The leading storyline about the
upcoming 19th Party Congress says that Xi is looking to grab
more power, to extend his political rule. But that narrative misses what such
meetings have been about historically—a clash of visions about China’s
direction. That the VPN proposal has surfaced now—on the eve of the
annual Beidaihe [北戴河] meeting of senior officials where
disagreements get aired--is a further signal that the Party Congress will be contentious.
Indeed, it’s likely to be a political showdown between Xi and his allies who
are looking to tighten the illiberal order they’ve built, and those who think
that there are better paths to reform than just more restrictions.

Who gets to block whom and how politically at the Party Congress--that’s the
larger story worth focusing on.

[1] The overseas
media’s focus on the effect a VPN ban would have on expats or foreign
enterprises in China is misplaced, given that the largest impact by far would
be on Chinese citizens.

[2] It is
important to note that nearly
all of the original reports about a banning of VPNs were sourced to
individuals speaking off the record, not to the institutions in China who would
be responsible for implementing such a directive. None of those sources could
be identified—for good reason—but it’s not apparent who they were, where they
worked, what positions they occupied, or their own views on the matter. There have
been instances where Chinese sources for stories were not actually working in the
bureaucracy, and people (including news assistants) may have been passing on information to reporters based
on conversations that couldn’t be immediately confirmed. Overseas Chinese websites
are notorious for sometimes running rumors as reliable information, and the odd
foreign journalist in China writing a story based on something a dissident or a
disaffected exile posted online. That doesn’t appear to be the case here, because
there seems to be collateral from institutions within China. But we may still
be witnessing a proposal, a pilot program, not an actual policy.